A curious thing began to happen in the 1970’s and 80’s. A new creature emerged from the primordial soup of intellectual evolution, a creature destined to dominate the future development of that soup, reshaping the thought-environment in new and unexpected ways, while virtually annihilating its predecessor. The creature I’m referring to, of course, is Digital Technology. You see, in the creation or reproduction of waves (generally sound waves at that point), people had always relied on the principle of analog reproduction, which maintained the smooth shape of the sound wave, preserved the curve, so to speak. Ye olde dinosaur Vinyl Record was one of the last true species of Analogosaur, except for the rugged survivor the Film Camera.
When Digitalus Erectus showed up on the turf, with its ability to store vast amounts of information in a small space, it multiplied so rapidly and easily that its evolutionary advantages made a rational mockery of the analog systems (consider the ease of copying a tape, or a CD, compared to copying a vinyl record). And yet, with all such dramatic evolutionary changes, so much that was beautiful is lost... must cold, heartless reason always govern evolution, or can aesthetics, can beauty have a say as well?
And just what is lost under the reign of the digital paradigm, you ask?
Allow me to explain.
The digital transfers its information, its sound, or its image by dividing it up into little blocks, little pixels, rather than transferring it in a direct representation of its original, curvy self. So if we look closely at the digital image, listen closely to the digital song, we see blocks and corners, blocks and corners. The audacious Etch-a-Sketch of Progress has carved right angles into the sumptuous curves of the Grand Design, and much of the integrity of analogy (some would argue) has been lost in cutting those corners.
When we think of using words to communicate our thoughts, for example, we’re tempted to think that the transfer of information, the exchange of ideas, takes place solely in the words. However, particularly with some of the more muttish languages like English, a great many words have three or four, or more, meanings, and can mean entirely different things in different contexts. Some words, like “so,” for instance, don’t even have any meaning on their own. “So” is completely reliant on context, on its relationship with other words: “I have so much time,” or “I can take only so much”; “and so,” “like so,” and so forth.
You get the picture.
Words, like little digital blocks of info, don’t carry the entirety of the meaning, then, do they? Ah no, Great Etch-a-Sketch! The music lies in between the words, in the lyrical spaces wherein dwell the Goddesses Intention and Context. When we focus too much on the discrete particles, on the isolatable pixels, we lose the transliteral, we lose the curves that bring the contours of Beauty to the communication of ideas. When we focus on the digits, we grow deaf to the Divine Whispers in the interstices.
Where am I going with all of this? Ever toward the Mystery. Living is a dance, yes a dance that requires music and image. The little blocks of meaning and consequence we pick out of the pixellated landscape of Time cannot hold the pattern that ties us all together, step by step. It is the steady stream of Consciousness, the mysterious flow of relationship, that allows us to dance, to write poetry, to make art, to LOVE. And I would argue-- I have experienced-- that all manner of communication can happen in those spaces between. One might call it telepathy, or psychic abilities, but I believe it is only the organic ability to transpose the sibilant curves of life-energy into understandable information. Before, that is, the digital Left Brain, with its almost compulsive insistence on linear cause and effect (blocks and corners, blocks and corners) pulls out the pixels and mistakes them for the picture.
Don't get me wrong, the Left Brain is almost half of the whole; the Etch-a-Sketch must have a say as well. But, whatever else I may be, I am a poet. Let me draw my tongue along the curvy lines of Life. Let me not get so stuck on single moments, single words, single acts, but dance the vibrant timelessness between.
Who's with me?
When Digitalus Erectus showed up on the turf, with its ability to store vast amounts of information in a small space, it multiplied so rapidly and easily that its evolutionary advantages made a rational mockery of the analog systems (consider the ease of copying a tape, or a CD, compared to copying a vinyl record). And yet, with all such dramatic evolutionary changes, so much that was beautiful is lost... must cold, heartless reason always govern evolution, or can aesthetics, can beauty have a say as well?
And just what is lost under the reign of the digital paradigm, you ask?
Allow me to explain.
The digital transfers its information, its sound, or its image by dividing it up into little blocks, little pixels, rather than transferring it in a direct representation of its original, curvy self. So if we look closely at the digital image, listen closely to the digital song, we see blocks and corners, blocks and corners. The audacious Etch-a-Sketch of Progress has carved right angles into the sumptuous curves of the Grand Design, and much of the integrity of analogy (some would argue) has been lost in cutting those corners.
When we think of using words to communicate our thoughts, for example, we’re tempted to think that the transfer of information, the exchange of ideas, takes place solely in the words. However, particularly with some of the more muttish languages like English, a great many words have three or four, or more, meanings, and can mean entirely different things in different contexts. Some words, like “so,” for instance, don’t even have any meaning on their own. “So” is completely reliant on context, on its relationship with other words: “I have so much time,” or “I can take only so much”; “and so,” “like so,” and so forth.
You get the picture.
Words, like little digital blocks of info, don’t carry the entirety of the meaning, then, do they? Ah no, Great Etch-a-Sketch! The music lies in between the words, in the lyrical spaces wherein dwell the Goddesses Intention and Context. When we focus too much on the discrete particles, on the isolatable pixels, we lose the transliteral, we lose the curves that bring the contours of Beauty to the communication of ideas. When we focus on the digits, we grow deaf to the Divine Whispers in the interstices.
Where am I going with all of this? Ever toward the Mystery. Living is a dance, yes a dance that requires music and image. The little blocks of meaning and consequence we pick out of the pixellated landscape of Time cannot hold the pattern that ties us all together, step by step. It is the steady stream of Consciousness, the mysterious flow of relationship, that allows us to dance, to write poetry, to make art, to LOVE. And I would argue-- I have experienced-- that all manner of communication can happen in those spaces between. One might call it telepathy, or psychic abilities, but I believe it is only the organic ability to transpose the sibilant curves of life-energy into understandable information. Before, that is, the digital Left Brain, with its almost compulsive insistence on linear cause and effect (blocks and corners, blocks and corners) pulls out the pixels and mistakes them for the picture.
Don't get me wrong, the Left Brain is almost half of the whole; the Etch-a-Sketch must have a say as well. But, whatever else I may be, I am a poet. Let me draw my tongue along the curvy lines of Life. Let me not get so stuck on single moments, single words, single acts, but dance the vibrant timelessness between.
Who's with me?
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